KUALA LUMPUR – Pakistan ended their Sultan Azlan Shah Cup journey with a third-place finish after defeating Japan 5-3 in Ipoh today.
“We played with the winning mentality and made fewer mistakes today. The team also played according to our game strategy to attack quickly and shut down our opponents.
“However, there is a lot more for us to learn, correct, be consistent, and learn playing the European way,” said Pakistan head coach Siegfried Aikman
Aikman added that they are a relatively young team building for the World Cup in 2026, and while the team has been performing in patches in the past four weeks, they are also still making mistakes.
“Overall, it has been a good trip for us to be exposed to high-performance matches and against Japan today, we did well against a team who had 10 players in the Olympics and another five in the Olympic training squad.
“I had our captain Umar Bhutta, who was the senior player and I also had nine players who earned their first cap here, and a few more players with less than 10 caps,” he said.
Meanwhile, Japan’s coach Akira Takahashi was disappointed in his team as they made too many errors, which cost them the match against Pakistan.
“We were in the lead, then we conceded and allowed Pakistan to take the lead. Each time we reduced the deficit, Pakistan would get back into the game through our own mistakes.
“I intend to make some changes when we return home as I am going to look at some young players we have identified. I may take a few of them to the Nations Cup at the end of the month.
“We came here wanting to win the title and having missed the final, we should have at least returned with a third-place finish,” he said.
In today’s match, Japan took the lead in the 10th minute through a goal by Kentaro Fukuda, but Pakistan responded swiftly in a counterattack as Abdul Shahid equalised in a one-on-one against Japan’s goalkeeper Takashi Yoshikawa.
Pakistan then took the lead in the 18th minute in their first penalty corner and doubled their advantage to 3-1 after scoring a goalmouth melee in the 27th minute.
Japan reduced the gap in the 31st minute, but before they could mount a return, Pakistan scored another, making it 4-2 in the 35th minute.
After several close calls and missed after that, Japan finally scored another goal in the 50th minute, but it was short-lived as Pakistan’s Abdul Rana scored in the 53rd minute to set the final score at 5-3.
In tomorrow’s final match, Malaysia will take on South Korea at 8pm. – The Vibes, November 9, 2022.
